election

Read the label closely on this bottled up thread of booze-minded, politically-fueled goodness: many of these games are guaranteed to give your tolerance for the alcohol a solid run, all the while pulverizing your liver. And hey, maybe that's exactly what some of us find ourselves hopelessly looking for as we stare out at the abyss of what some might call the 'death of the American Dream', while others see hope and promise. I don't know. Let's hoist a glass either way and enjoy the circus.

Part of me right now is harboring the gut kind of instinct that the Donald had to have knowingly stirred the pot of chaos on this one. I mean dude, not only is this the wrong Ivanka, but she's evidently an outspoken environmentalist. See for yourself with the tweet she decided to respond back with after DJ Trump's original botched attempt to touch base with the wifey on Twitter:

If you live in the United States, you have a new president. The people have spoken, and they said that billionaire, reality TV-show host Donald Trump is how they want to ride out the next four years.

Look, this was a divisive election, and a very close one at that. As has been said many times, this wasn’t necessarily the time for a protest vote for, say, Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, but that doesn’t mean the Internet can’t find another third-party spoiler to bring America to its logical conclusion and elect a billionaire, reality TV-show host.

The Internet, because its nothing if not predictable, chose a new candidate: Dead-gorilla turned confusing-meme, Harambe.That’s right, the gorilla who was shot dead after a child fell into his pen at the zoo received 11,000 votes in last night’s election. And that’s how game-show hosts are elected president, when people write in memes to be president.

So there you have it, folks. Reality TV-show host is president, and I am now this Tweet:

While Trump Memes have been online for a while by now, the internet has come up with a brand new meme in light of footage of Donald Trump craning his neck over the voting booths to check his wife Melania's ballot. Possibly because everyone has a lot of time on their hands while they wait in insanely long voting lines.

Donald Trump has said a lot of things this election season, but there’s one thing none of us should stand for: Lying about our professional athletes and supermodels. Professional athletes and supermodels are the backbone of this country. They are who we aspire to be, and who we bow down before, hanging our heads in shame.

This makes Tom Brady’s supposed endorsement of Donald Trump all the more disturbing.

The New York Post reports that Donald Trump said to a rally on Monda that he spoke to Brady and recieved his vote. Trump recounted their conversation:

“Great guy, great friend of mine — great, great champion. Unbelievable winner. He called today and he said, ‘Donald, I support you, you’re my friend, and I voted for you.

And I said, ‘So Tom. You voted for me, you support me, am I allowed to say it tonight at this massive crowd in New Hampshire?’ He said, ‘If you want to say it, you can say it.’”

However, in the hours that passed, word finally got to Tom Brady’s wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen. On Instagram, a fan put it bluntly, asking “Gisele I heard you and Tom were backing Trump! Is that true??”

And there you have it, folks. This election season has brought out a lot in all of us. We struggle as a nation to bridge great divides between us and find our place in this crazy, mixed-up world. It’s hard enough, but at least we can rely on our supermodels and professional athletes to be there for us, speak for themselves, and never get lost in the fray.

Facebook, a never-ending source of useful information, has been our goto for up-to-the-minute election coverage this past season. As such, it’s probably caused us more anxiety about this election than any one speech, Wikileaks email, or video featuring Billy Bush. Your Facebook wall feeds into your worst fears about the candidates, and Stephen Colbert knows it.

On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night, Colbert took a big swig of cough syrup, dusted off his box of Reynolds wrap, and made a new tinfoil hat to block the radio signals that the Illuminati uses to read our minds. Colbert is full of great intel about such things as the whereabouts of Chumbawumba, the shadowy industry of upstate New York weddings, and what oysters actually are. By the end of it, you’ll have your cork board up and long strands of yarn connecting seemingly disparate items together to prove your theory that, hey, what if the Chicken McNugget is more nugget than chicken?

“The top trend on Twitter on Friday morning comes from an alleged WikiLeaks email of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta discussing spirit cooking. WikiLeaks tweeted that it involves "blood, sperm and breastmilk." Spirit cooking refers to performance artist Marina Abramovic's "cookbook" of recipes to cook up thoughts -- not meals. However, some on Twitter are taking it to the extreme and accusing the former secretary of state of devil worship. "This is not the first or last time that WikiLeaks has tweeted propaganda while doing Putin's bidding," a Clinton campaign representative wrote in an email. CNET cannot independently verify the information in the alleged email, and it is be entirely possible that someone altered the email before it was publicly released.”

What does it take to get you to vote? Is it civic duty? A profound belief in a candidate? Fear of another candidate?

For almost half the American population, none of these things matter because they don’t vote. In fact, only about 56 percent of Americans voted in 2008. There are no numbers on this, but it’s entirely reasonable to think that maybe more people say “Thanks, Obama” than voted for him.

So what does it take? Money? Would you like money out of a candidate's pocket? Well, that’s not gonna happen, buddy! This is America! We don’t pay for votes here, so take it some place else.

But what about those celebrity videos? Can Stanley Tucci get you to vote?

Sorry, Tucc. No. Celebrity videos where they guilt you into voting don’t work because they depend on the old theory of “rational self-interest,” i.e. the idea that people will vote based on heavily-reinforced social norms. People don’t operate based on “rational self interest,” do they? People say that they’re going to vote but, in many cases, don’t actually do it.

Over on YouTube, The Nerdwriter found something that just might work: shame. That’s right, if shamed into it, people will vote. He offers some different methods for implementing the age-old practice of shame, like a thing on Facebook that says “I Voted” or, the Scarlett Letter of the digital age, “I Didn’t Vote.”

If only Nate Silver could've known that his electoral map tweets would inspire the latest hilarious meme movement. Silver was attempting to illustrate how the election would turn out if only men, or only women turned out to vote based on a polls-only forecast. The blue map showed Hillary winning big time, while the red shows Trump with the easy victory. Shortly after all this, Eric Trump pushed the men-only electoral map as a 'hint' momentum was on their side. Let the hilarity ensue.